Imperial Brass Cartridge casings

[Tristan]

I've come across a headstamp that is unfamiliar to me; Imperial in 30-30 and 32 Win Special.

Interesting thing about the 32 special brass, it's been sized to 30-30 as well.

Anyone familiar with this brass, and it's quality?

Thanks,

Tristan

[oneokie]

Canadian manufacture. Commercial headstamp of IVI. My experience is that it is good brass.

[Al_sway]

Imperial was the brand name used after CIL and Dominion were shelved by the Canadian manufacturer. Some of the Imperial brass was good, but later lots (usually with small print on the headstamp) was not as good. As for being sized down to .30-30, I have done the same thing with range pick ups as I can use .30-30, but not .32. The same cartridge case with different neck diameters.

[Bret4207]

Any I've used, and that's quite a bit, has been excellent quality. Most of mine was CIL.

[Tony65x55]

Imperial is good brass. It was good ammo too. They had the Ballistic Tip bullet decades before Nosler. They called it the SabreTip and it was very accurate and devastating on medium game. I still have about 300 .270 Sabretips left over from 1,000 I bought when they went out of business. Sad day.

[BruceB]

Canadian Industries Limited (CIL) made commercial ammo for decades in Canada. It was indeed superb ammunition, which a good thing because it was also about all we had in Canada for those decades. The Imperial brand was the one they used for commercial ammo. Military ammunition for the Canadian Forces was another major part of the production.

Their manufacturing plant was taken over by Industrie Valcartier Industries (gotta be politically correct/bilingual, right?) quite a while back. The more-savvy military people I knew noted a dramatic drop in ammo quality at that time, and the same occurred in the commercial production.

The IVI brass isn't bad these days, but I don't think it's as good as Winchester or Remington stuff.

CIL "Sabretips" even back in the '60s and '70s were FAR ahead of, for instance, the Nosler Ballistic Tips of today in one critical category. They used DIFFERENT COLOURS (Canajun spelling there) within the calibers to denote different bullet weights. As an example, if you had a handful of .30-30 rounds and some had black tips while others were white, it was dead easy to sort them into 150- and 170-grain piles. Try that with a bunch of Nosler .30- 06 loads, ALL of which are the SAME shape and the SAME color, but could be 125s, 150s, 165s, 180s or whatever....the only way to separate them into weight groups is to weigh them!

I wrote to Nosler about this once upon a time, but heard nothing back. Even if they want to stick to one basic color, let's say green, to each caliber, it would NOT be difficult to use different shades of green for each bullet weight. In the quantities they make (millions), it would be easy to get the tips in different colors within the calibers. Pet peeve, can y'all tell?

[wildwilly]

Several years ago I bought about 1000 Imperial 30-30 primed cases from another shooter at a very low price. I soon discovered that the brass was very soft. It was so soft that a crimped jacketed bullet would slip back into the case under magazine spring tension. I relegated the brass to reloading only cast bullets with a deep crimping groove. I also make four passes through the sizing die to harden the cases a bit.

[NickSS]

I have shot the old imperial ammo and it is good stuff and the brass lasts a long time. I still have some in service after 20 years of more. I have also shot a lot of IVI ammo when I was competing in service rifle matches. In Canada in the 80s they issued the stuff at rifle matches I went to up there. It shot poorly compared to US GI ammo but the brass works OK for reloading. The last match I went to up there they switched to 5.56 X45 and although they gave me the ammo I shot my M1A in 308 with matchking bullets and they poor Canadians who had to shoot the 223 really were at a disadvantage. Today they have good bullets and the mouse gun rules but not back 20 or more years ago.

[madsenshooter]

Imperial is good brass. It was good ammo too. They had the Ballistic Tip bullet decades before Nosler. They called it the SabreTip and it was very accurate and devastating on medium game. I still have about 300 .270 Sabretips left over from 1,000 I bought when they went out of business. Sad day.

I got some of those Sabre Tips too, got 1000 180gr 30cal, I think from SARCO. Took one deer with them out of an M1A, a yearling at about 300yd. Turned his heart to jelly and I found the about half length shank with a big mushroom on the front buried about 6in into the spoil bank behind him.

Don't offer Nosler any of your expertise. I sent Winchester to them and the result was the Combined Technology bullets. Ballistic Silvertip was my suggestion for the name as I lamented the passing of the Silvertip line of ammo. Bob Nosler was real generous, sent me a CT hat. I'd have preferred a job doing something I like.

[bb07]

I've still got some Imperial .30-06 sabretips kicking around.
Sometime in the early '90's I think it was,I bought a 1000 .30 cal 180gr bullets for $90.These were leftover from the factory closing,& were not final sized to .308.Instead they measured .309.I was aware of this when I bought them but thought they'd be good to have for backup bullets in case I ran out of everything else.
I called Sierras tech line & asked about shooting them in a .30-06 & was told being one thousands over size wouldn't be a problem.I shot a few with no noticeable problems but haven't shot any more since buying them.I have them still squirreled away.
I always got a laugh out of Nosler when they announced their "invention" of the ballistic tips.

[Eutectic]

I have loaded Imperial brass in both .30-30 and .38-55.

I agree that it is somewhat soft. (including head)

Neck concentricity is pretty good. (under .001")

.38-55 brass is full length (2.120") and necks thin enough for .380" boolits in a tight chamber.

I guess my only real kick is that Imperial doesn't cut a relief groove in front of the rim as American manufacturers do. So my Model 94's shave a little brass with the extractor which is irritating...

Eutectic